Hearts and Aces (Kelsey's Burden Series Book 7), Kaylie Hunter [guided reading books TXT] 📗

Colorado. A twenty-six-year old single mother was stabbed in the parking lot outside her apartment. No suspects. No witnesses. The woman’s body was found two hours later, her purse and jewelry still on the scene. Her autopsy indicated that she bled out from a single stab wound that nicked her clavicle artery.

I read the background report on the victim. She worked as a waitress at a breakfast diner, and based on the official time of death, she would have been leaving her apartment to go to work. Her only possession was a 2005 Honda Civic. She had three hundred and change in her bank account. No known enemies.

I flipped to the photos of the crime scene. The woman’s body was half propped against the rear tire, her purse inches away from her left hand. On the other monitor, I pulled up the contents of her purse. No phone. Her attacker likely grabbed it from her right hand while fleeing the scene.

“Did you try her phone?”

“It’s not on. The sheriff has an alert set to track the phone if it’s used.”

“Can you get me a list of car thefts within a fifty-mile radius? Filter out newer models. We need to look for older cars, low technology.”

“What are you thinking?”

“She’s a single mother, struggling paycheck to paycheck. If she saw someone stealing her car, she’d likely try to stop them.”

“Damn. And lose her life over a Civic?”

I shrugged. “Without her car, she’d have no transportation to get to work. It could’ve financially crippled her for years. And based on the position of the body, so close to the driver’s door, my theory is possible. Now we just have to see if I’m right.”

Bridget snorted but didn’t look up from her computer monitor.

“I’ve got two cars that were stolen matching that description. One was two months ago. The other was the week before our victim was murdered.”

An alert appeared at the bottom of my screen telling me Tech had sent a file. I clicked the alert and read the basic reports. I grabbed the phone and called the sheriff, explaining that I could continue searching, but I believed the crime was related to car thefts. Based on the cars being older models, he might be looking for someone who’d been out of the game, likely now released from prison. He agreed to saving his county a few bucks by running the research from there and said he’d let me know if he came up with anything. I hung up and compiled a report for him, emailing it directly to him.

“Who does the billing?” I asked Tech.

“I do,” he said, sighing. “I tried to get Jerry to do it, but he said your notes and files were a mess and he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So… I keep a notepad going,” he held up the notepad, “and send invoices when I get time.”

The phone rang, and Tech answered it on speaker. It was the receptionist saying that Mr. Arthur Kemp was in the lobby. Tech let her know one of us would be right down.

“That was fast,” I said.

“Did I forget to mention that I’ve been letting Kemp sleep on my couch?” Bridget said as she walked around the table and grabbed Tech’s billing notepad. “I’ll get him setup in Grady’s office and have him start on these invoices.”

“Shouldn’t we describe the job and ask if he’s interested first?” I asked.

“I’ve been texting with him. He already accepted the job and was willing to start today. He’s bored.”

Tech glanced up at me, waiting to see if I was going along with skipping the interview process. He had dark circles under his eyes, and I knew he was struggling to keep up with the workload. I shrugged, not caring that we weren’t following the typical hiring process.

Tech nodded, completing our non-verbal conversation, before swiveling his chair in Bridget’s direction. “Get him access to our main email account. There are over a hundred new emails I haven’t opened yet.”

“Done.”

Bridget opened the door and James, president of the Devil’s Players, stood on the other side with his hand in the air, ready to knock.

“Come on in, James,” I called out to him. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been out of town the last few weeks,” he said as he looked around the room. “This room is crazy. No wonder Tech never works at the clubhouse anymore.”

“It’s definitely got a vibe. Were you looking for Tech? Or for me?”

“You. Tyler scheduled some guys to work patrols, and I wanted to check in with you about the security assignments.”

I raised an eyebrow at James. Tech laughed and excused himself to take some files to Grady’s office. Reggie stopped playing a game on his phone and threw his arms over his head, interlacing his fingers to watch. Carl smiled broadly as his head swiveled between James and me.

“Tyler’s in charge of personal security for my family,” I reminded James.

“Tyler’s just a prospect. As president, I’m in charge.”

“No. Tyler is my employee. He can choose to hire club members, but he does so as my employee. We contract the club for crowd control on Saturdays. That’s club business. The everyday protection of my family is overseen by Tyler.”

“But Tyler is a prospect for the Devil’s Players.”

“So what? Is Whiskey’s contracting company also managed by you? Or what about Chops’ service repair garage?”

“No, those are their businesses,” James said, sighing. “Look, maybe it would be best if I talk to Grady or Donovan about this.”

“They’re out of town at the moment, but please do speak to them. I’d like to know what they say when you tell them that anything that Tech and Tyler do as employees is club business. In fact, give me advance notice, so we can video record the event.”